


Helpless

by AlanSchezar



Series: The Zootopia Chronicles [2]
Category: Zootopia (2016)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-06
Updated: 2016-06-06
Packaged: 2018-07-12 18:27:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 931
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7117564
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlanSchezar/pseuds/AlanSchezar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The problem with love is that its roots reach deep into the secret, hidden places of the heart. To know love is to know pain, grief, and even fear. Fortunately, love is also the antidote for fear. (One shot set in the continuum of Out of the Woods)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Helpless

_Darkness. Thick, cold, clutching darkness._

_Blood, smoke, pain, screams._

_Nick's eyes search for her, find her, and he reaches. The jackal comes back, driving the knife in again. Blood...so much blood._

_She runs, but her steps refuse to move her. Her legs pump, her thighs burn, but she gets no closer._

_She reaches for her gun, but it's gone. Her baton, tazer, belt, all gone. He needs her but she's helpless, totally helpless._

_She watches him die, his paws reaching to her, the jackal's grin splattered with his blood._

_And she screams._

Judy shot bolt upright in bed with an agonized cry, her breaths coming in desperate gasps. Her eyes wide, she reached for him without thinking, her paw coming to rest on his side. Though her heart still pounded furiously in her chest, she could breathe easy again as she realized her love was sleeping peacefully beside her and the blood soaked horror fading from her mind's eye was merely a nightmare. She absently stroked her thumb over the two bands of gold encircling the middle finger of her left paw. It dawned on her that the ties that bind could cut two ways; the smooth, solid rings were at once a comfort and a herald of dread.

The curtains had been left partially open, rustling softly in the breeze wafting through the open window. The August moon flooded the bedroom, laying a bold streak of pale glow over their bodies draped in soft cotton sheets. Her eyes slipped closed as the warm, dry night breeze washed over her, tinged with the faint, perfumed remnant of a late summer's day.

She slowly withdrew her paw, hugging her knees to her chest with both arms, her ears laying flat against her back. Tears stung the corners of her eyes, but she blinked them away and forced herself to take deep, slow breaths to purge the anxiety and stress pumping through her veins.

"Mmnhh...you okay, Carrots?" Nick mumbled, rolling over onto his back. He reached up, tenderly stroking his paw up and down her back a few times; she could feel the coolness of his ring on her skin amid the warmth of his paw's touch. Like her own, it was a symbol of the ethereal but unbreakable thread that bound their hearts together, the thread that made her nightmare so deeply horrifying.

"Nightmare?" he asked, his voice clearer as he forced himself to sit up.

"It's nothing..." she started to say, but he shook his head.

"Unh, unh, don't start that...talk to me," he said, his paw still slowly meandering up and down her back.

A long silence intervened before she quieted her turbid thoughts enough to speak, her eyes remaining closed as she let his tender touch wash away her anxiety.

"It's...it's this dream I've had a few times," she said, her voice hushed, "You're being attacked, stabbed, and I can't run to you, and when I reach for my gun, it's gone – or sometimes I draw my gun and it's empty, nothing happens when I squeeze the trigger...and you die. You die, and I'm helpless..."

"...Or sometimes it's a group of civilians, or one of the guys from work...but every time you try to intervene, you can't, and they die," Nick said, picking up her sentence as if he could read her thoughts, his paw coming to rest over her far shoulder, drawing her closer to his side.

Judy turned to him with wide eyes. Bathed in shadow and moonlight, he turned to her, a half smile on his lips, "Yeah, I've had it too. I know a bunch of the guys at the office have too. Apparently, it's pretty common with cops."

"Nick..." she whispered, staring into his emerald eyes in hopes they might drown out the dread clawing at the back of her mind, "I don't know what I'd do if I lost you... _I love you so much._ "

He sighed, scooting back and reclining against the headboard. He lifted his arm, inviting her to nestle into his embrace and use his chest as her pillow, an invitation she happily accepted. She nuzzled into his chest, sliding her paw over his stomach and playing her fingers through the soft white fur. He wrapped his arm around her, shielding her from the imagined terrors of the night. Enveloped in his embrace, cradled against his chest, she could never keep from marveling at how safe, how cherished she felt. He had long since become her bulwark against every kind of darkness, real or imagined. Many times that darkness had tested him, battered him, yet time and again he stood firm for her.

"Listen, Carrots..." he said at length, when he felt her breaths had calmed, "There's no guarantees in this life, especially not in our line of work...the truth is, either one of us could bite it any day of the week; you know that. We don't have guarantees, but we have each other. No matter what happens out there, we have each other...and that's enough for me." She felt his arm pull her closer, his paw slipping over her belly with a soft caress before he added in a hushed voice, " _It'll always be enough._ "

She smiled in spite of herself, wrapping her arms around him and squeezing tightly. She breathed a contented sigh and closed her eyes, giving a soft nuzzle under his chin and drinking in the comforting warmth of his scent for a long moment. "I love you, sweet fox," she said.

"Love you too, beautiful bunny."


End file.
